These are the parts that are in the package. Gold plated are shown, but they are available in many different platings, including better quality gold, Titanium, chrome, black, and brushed finishes.
1- Brass tubes, 2- Tip, 3- Twist mechanism, 4- Center ring, 5- Clip, 6- Cap, 7- Pen refill (similar to "Cross")
Recommendation:
Buy all pen parts and supplies from the same source.
Parts that appear to be the same may not be interchangeable when they are purchased from different sources. . These differences may be a small as 0.002" or 0.003", but that can be enough to make the difference between a high quality pen and one that falls apart in the hands of its user.
This is the only advice that I can offer to someone purchasing their first pen kits. I hear everyone saying that all of these parts kit from the various suppliers are the same and come from a single source. If that were true, then I would think that all of the parts would be interchangeable. They aren't.
As an example, the brass tubes from Penn State are about 3/16" shorter than those from Hut Products. There are other kits that have different lengths for the two halves of the pen. There is enough difference in the diameters of the brass tubes that there can be a sloppy fit on the mandrel from another source. These differences are reflected in all of the other parts that are pressed into the brass tubes. Caps can be too tight or too loose, tips will fall out of a tube that is too large, and the length of the refill will be wrong.
The solution is to buy everything from the same source, and save the mixing of parts until after we have made a few pens. Buying a single kit from a different supplier to check their compatability would be a good idea. I purchase most pen parts from Hut Products. That is where I bought the first ones, and I have never found any reason to change. Others will recommend a different supplier, but I have no recent experience with any of the others.
